


shaking off the rust

by usoverlooked



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, The Pack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-13
Updated: 2013-11-13
Packaged: 2018-01-01 09:10:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1043033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/usoverlooked/pseuds/usoverlooked
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’re weird,” Stiles blurts.</p><p>“You’re in a tree,” she replies.</p><p>(or also: Erica & Stiles through some years)</p>
            </blockquote>





	shaking off the rust

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thecivilunrest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecivilunrest/gifts).



(12)

“What are you doing up there?” The voice nearly causes Stiles to fall. He scrambles in lieu of answering, hands wrapping around the tree limb before he pulls himself up to wrap arms around it instead. Finally comforted by his position, Stiles look down – upside down and mildly confused - to find a blonde girl staring up at him. She’s skinny, he thinks, though her sweatshirt – with Sailor Moon and what he thinks is a spaghetti stain on the chest – is obviously a large. He stares at her until she crosses her arms, cocking her head, greasy hair spilling over her shoulder. She huffs. “I asked you a question.”

“I’m climbing a tree,” Stiles says, releasing one arm to stretch it expansively at the tree, as if that will further explain things. Stiles squints at her, twisting his head. “And who are _you_ anyways?”

“I moved here two months ago,” the girl answers, one of her hands untangling from where they were crossed and going to her hair. She twists it absently, biting her lip. Stiles watches, considering her. He’s sure he should know the girl, his – or, apparently _their_ – sixth grade class isn’t that big. Stiles is nearly to point this out when her face pinches with something like annoyance. “You’re too tall. That’s probably not safe.”

“You’re weird,” Stiles blurts, face burning at her observation. The girl raises both eyebrows, mouth dropping open before it snaps shut again.

“You’re in a _tree_ ,” she replies before turning on her heel and stalking off. Stiles doesn’t watch her go – mostly due to the fact that he’s nearly to topple out of the tree and is focused on righting himself. The girl, on the other hand, looks back over her shoulder. Twice.

 

 

 

(17)

“You’re alive,” Stiles breathes the words against her shoulder. Erica nods – still not trusting her voice – before she exhales, shaky and something close to laughter. Stiles’s hands flit around her as he backs away, like he’s afraid touching her again will break the spell, yet also afraid she’ll slip away if he doesn’t.

“You didn’t think I was letting Derek off the hook that easily, did you?” She manages finally. With a groan, Erica pulls herself up, brushing away Stiles’s offered hand, feeling the spray of dirt fall from the crevices in her jacket as she does. Rolling her shoulders back, Erica tries to erase the crick in her neck. “So where’s my Boyd?”

Stiles doesn’t answer. There’s a long pause, too long, and Erica nods. Dirt falls from her hair as she does, scattering along her boot tops. She sucks in a breath between her teeth, eyes on the shovel resting against Stiles feet.

“Scott’s an alpha. Derek’s not alpha anymore though and we lost Peter – not that we’re sad, more concerned – and Isaac is living with the McCalls. Oh, Lydia’s a banshee too and she’s dating a werewolf – he was evil and now he’s, well, I don’t-“ Stiles stops when Erica’s hand clamps onto his arm.

“I’m gone for five minutes and you guys just let everything fall to pieces,” she says, mouth twisted into a grin. She licks her lips and Stiles watches the motion. “Slow down, tiger, I need some kind of adjustment period here.”

Smile slipping, she steps away from him, uneasy in the dirt and her heels. Erica does not look back, focused instead on the path as she stumbles down it. Behind her, Stiles watches her, entirely unsure of himself.

 

 

 

(18)

“So college,” Erica drops onto the couch next to him. He looks over at her and blanks at what he sees.

“Hair,” he stammers, motioning with one hand around his own head. Erica tilts her head, the hint of a smile playing on her lips. She nods.

“Cut it. So, Scott says you’re thinking about not going to college,” Erica says. There’s a pause and one of her hands goes to her hair, the tips of it just at her chin as she tugs on them. Stiles reaches out – almost automatically – catching her hand. Her eyes snap back to him.

“I, huh, um, sorry,” Stiles manages, dropping her hand like it burned him. He swallows. “Right, college, yeah, I’m starting to think I don’t need it. So what inspired the cut?”

Something flashes across her face at the question and Stiles nearly retracts it. Yet her face is set too quickly for him to react and she’s rolling her eyes. “So what are you going to do instead of college? Because-“

“My dad’s retiring. His knee,” Stiles interrupts, voice too harsh. Erica shrivels back at the comment, the reminder. It wasn’t her, Stiles knows, but it was wolves and they’re all to blame. He looks down at his hands. “So anyways, I was figuring police academy, follow in his footsteps, it’s always good for the pack to have somebody on the force in the loop, so.”

Stiles shrugs, motions his hands out expansively to complete the statement. Erica grabs the one nearest to her and he looks up at her. She stares at him for a moment, mulling something over.

“Cora said it’s been a year, from what she remembers. So I cut it,” she says finally, her voice thick. Stiles stares at her, something burning down his spine at the words. Erica shrugs a shoulder. “Doesn’t look that bad, does it?”

The words are barely out of her mouth before Stiles is there. It’s messy, her too surprised to properly react for a second as his hands frame her face, trailing into her hair as he pulls back infinitesimally. Then she does react, hands around his neck, tugging him back to her. He smiles against her lips and she freezes, jerking away.

“Boyd,” she says, face stricken. She practically catapults off the couch, gasping with something like a sob. Stiles does not watch her go, shutting his eyes and falling back into the couch, feeling something like a thief despite it all.

 

 

(21)

“Hello, officer,” Erica croons, trailing her nails down Stiles’s back. Stiles tries – fails – not to wince. He turns to see her, hair longer again, mouth blood red and smirking. The piece de resistance is her dress, a teensy red thing that looks painted on.

“You look good,” Stiles says, one hand going up to scratch at his hair and bumping his police hat in the process. He manages to right it, earning an even larger Cheshire Cat grin from Erica. He laughs. “Scratch that, you look like trouble.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Erica laughs, loops an arm through his. She leads him down the hall to the meeting and – it’s been a while, Stiles realizes as the pack adjusts to his presence. Cora’s eyes shift oddly between Erica and Stiles, before her shoulders cave around her and she slinks against the desk. Though Stiles would never say it, he sometimes feels that Cora’s more feline than lupine.

“You look like a cat when you do that,” Erica saunters over to Cora, flicking at the other girl’s arm. Cora growls at that, earning a chuckle from Derek at her feet. Erica asks, politely, if that was a hiss and Cora swipes at the older girl, claws still in, the action harmless.

Stiles hasn’t thought about that moment three years ago very much. Or, well he tries not to, at the least. Now, however, he fails. Stiles watches, entranced as Erica teasingly meows at Cora, Derek chorusing in, then Isaac as well. Erica looks over her shoulder at him, and he chimes in.

 

 

 

 

(25)

“Are we old?” Stiles asks, the question skittering out across the phone line. Erica’s laugh answers him, the clacking of her keyboard underneath it. Stiles laughs as well. “No, I’m like 70% serious, Reyes. I mean, Scott’s buying an engagement ring, Isaac’s graduating from college, Cora’s convincing Derek to buy curtains. Everything’s moving so fast.”

“Scott was ready to buy a ring for Allison about ten years ago,” Erica pauses. Stiles figures she’s calculating it, same as he had when Scott had called him a week ago. She breathes out a few moments later and he smirks to himself. “Well, shit, _now_ I feel old. And oddly behind.”

“Don’t knock yourself, you’ve had curtains for like three years,” Stiles quips, earning a huff of a chuckle in response. He bites back the smile growing on his lips and it still nearly stretches his face. “Lightyears ahead of the Hales.”

“Not bad for a dead girl, I suppose,” Erica says, something odd in her tone. The clack of the keyboard has fallen silent and for a moment the line stays like that – a quiet that seems more melancholy than Stiles had expected a conversation with her to be.

“I wish you were here,” Stiles breaks the silence. He stares at the wall above his desk, at the picture pinned there of the pack – all of them about to topple over each other, Scott holding Allison and Lydia on one shoulder each, Isaac on Allison’s side, looking up with an expression caught between amused and nervous, Cora looping arms around him as if to tug him away, Derek by her side staring at the camera as if only it will understand his trials, Erica with arms around Danny and Stiles’s shoulders, an ear-to-ear grin on her face. Two seconds after it was taken, Lydia had shoved at Allison or vice versa and it’d all toppled down – Danny somehow catching Lydia despite the crowd of supernatural beings, Allison landing somehow in both Isaac and Scott’s arms. He starts to bring it up to Erica when he tunes back in to the phone call, but stops. There’s a snuffling sound on the other end, followed by a short huff of breath.

“You’re crying. Shit, Erica, I’m-“

“Oh shut up, there’s just this dumb picture, where Lydia and Allison are falling and you look _horrified_ -“ her voice catches on a laughing sob “-and Danny’s like diving and it’s all just a mess and I just… I miss everybody, I can’t wait until this stupid summer excursion is over, whatever, don’t tell anyone,” her voice goes soft at the end of her statement and he can picture it – her with her head ducked low, the way it always gets when she’s emotional, one hand twisting at the ends of her hair.

“I really wish you were here,” Stiles says and this time it’s different. He’s looking at the pictures still, but not all of it. Just her.

 

 

 

(26)

“Oh my god you’re here,” Stiles says, the words spilling out on top of each other. Erica raises an eyebrow, hands fisted in her leather jacket. He opens his door wider and she slips in, her elbow catching him in his chest as she tries to brush by him. Stiles reaches out, grabs the elbow and she has him against the wall – pinned – before he can move.

“Sorry, instincts,” Erica lets him drop, her arms falling back to her sides. She doesn’t back away, however, stays close to Stiles. “You have no idea the kind of busses I had to take to get here. I mean, never again am I taking Scott’s advice about how going to the Canadian border _alone_ helps you find yourself.”

“I mean, you may find yourself but you also find Canada,” Stiles says, an echo of a joke he made when she announced the trip five months ago. It feels longer, in the tiny space of his entryway. Stiles reaches out, slow like she may spook, and touches the sleeve of her jacket, slivery fingers slipping up the sleeves to rest on her wrists. They’re thinner than he thinks they should be, all things considered.

“Stiles,” she breathes and it’s like the spell is broken. He kisses her. He pushes forward until she’s against the opposite wall, hands dropping her wrists and flying to her face, hair, neck, anywhere he can reach. Her hands dig into his shoulders, almost painful in their grip. She pulls him away minutely and he tries to keep the disappointment off his face.

“When I was twelve, you scared me,” she whispers and he remembers.

“Erica, you’ve scared me just about ever since,” he whispers back and it’s not even close to true and yet it is and for a second she just smiles up at him and looks. And he looks back.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> for Dicey, my favorite whatever idk it's one a.m. for Dicey, okay?
> 
>  
> 
> ALSO: Thank you for reading! Comments are much loved.


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